My Neighbor

Analysis

The narrator wants to find out more details about the life and the activities of his new neighbor Harras. He assumes that Harras wants to harm him commercially, possible even ruin him. He does not speak to Harras but makes inquiries, finding no more than that he is a "young and emerging man" like himself. He is suspicious because Harras is always in a hurry and does not seem interested in a conversation. The narrator feels increasingly threatened, his fears grow to the grotesque, without evidence. In the end, his self-confidence has dissolved completely.

Form

It is in telling the neighbor to a short story in so far as the action begins, and suddenly breaks off abruptly at the end, the reader will, as is typical for this type of text is left to find a conclusion. Here is an increasingly delusional monologue of overburdened by their work and competitive thinking people developed a basic life uncertainty.

Kafka is through his narrative technique (the personal narrative situation) the reader a chance to learn more, as the narrator tells him. The assault, in a paranoiac - so it really is paranoia - empathy, you feel as uncomfortable. This also applies to the whole surreal alienated world into which one is introduced. Typical of surrealism is that this world is an initially familiar, but gradually assumes strange traits. Familiar one comes before the world because of the language used (high-level language with familiar words and simple sentences constructed). So the reader can understand the action slightly, but they do not fully "understand". It creeps over the reader the uncomfortable feeling that this book tour of the interior view of a delusion similar [2]. The anxiously rampant imagination of the narrator expresses himself by the initial short-winded phrases change to a long-reaching set of structures. To the impression of the grotesque adds, that the narrator his rival even linguistically dehumanizing (e.g. "As the tail of a rat slipped he is ..."). Umtanzende of the phone as a narrator tragikomische woebegone figure is an almost Chaplinesque appearance with slapstick elements of silent film. --

References to other works of Kafka

The central vehicle of the uncertainty of the protagonist is the telephone. This was a new form of communication in the beginning of the 20th century that scared Kafka. In the novel The Castle, the phone also plays an irritating confusing role.

Kafka featured the hardships of a merchant again and again, probably due to the numerous complaints of his father. An early story was titled "Der Kaufmann" ("The Merchant"). The story "Das Ehepaar" ("The Married Couple") discusses the competition between two traders. Gregor Samsa in The Metamorphosis is - an unfortunate commercial agent before he is transformed.

Reception

Sudau writes "Doch der Konkurrenzkampf ist nur das offensichtliche Problem des Textes; eine tiefer sitzende Daseinsunsicherheit und -angst kann als das eigentliche angesehen werden. Zögerlichkeit, Kleinlichkeit, Misstrauen, Ängstlichkeit, Selbstvorwürfe und Zwangsvorstellungen sind sein Daseinsdiktum. ... Der Text zeigt die Genese von Vorurteil und Verfolgungswahn." (But the competition is only the obvious problem of the text, the real problem is a deeper uncertainty and anxiety. Hesitancy, pettiness, distrust, anxiety, self-blame and obsessions shape his existence. ... The text shows the genesis of prejudice and paranoia.)

References

Literature

• Ralf Sudau: Franz Kafka: Kurze Prosa/ Erzählungen. Klett Verlag, 2007, .
• Peter-André Alt: Franz Kafka: Der ewige Sohn. Eine Biographie. Verlag C.H. Beck, München 2005, .
• Franz Kafka, Johannes Diekhans, Elisabeth Becker: Textausgaben: Die Verwandlung / Brief an den Vater und andere Werke. Schöningh im Westermann, (January 1999), .

References

1. ''The Great Wall of China: Stories and Reflections''. Franz Kafka - 1946 - Schocken Books